Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Is Speaker Boehner and GOP House Investigations Going to Hand Democrats the House and Senate?

If I was a betting person, I would say that the odds of Democrats being able to take back the House in the fall just got higher. American people as a whole are sick and tired of these worthless investigations costing millions. Speaker Boehner's House GOP are playing to the hard right but in the process are losing Republicans who are not hard right and are sick and tired of the radical right running the GOP including Pat Robertson who spoke out which begs to question how hard right are the current GOP leaders? Cannot get over Robertson going after them:

Robertson is concerned that Republicans are fielding unelectable far-right candidates, which will cause voters to break in favor of Democrats at the ballot box. Without explicitly saying so, he was most likely referring to Tea Party primary challengers, who come largely from the ranks of the Religious Right. As conservatives are generally not known for taking personal responsibility, he fails to implicate himself in any of the backlash.

Pat Robertson over the years has made comments that I thought were radical so that has to tell you how radical the people are who now control the Republican Party. Scary comes to mind as a friend and I decided today when talking about the Kochs.

Speaking of the Kochs, how much are the Koch Bros paying Boehner and friends in the House to make fools of themselves over Benghazi, IRS, and Impeachment of Obama. Most of the current GOP in Congress have lost all sense of fairness, decency, honesty, and ethics as they are nothing more then puppets of the Kochs who are pulling their strings. How much are the investigations out of the Rove playbook he used against Clinton in the 90's? It sure reads like it with these investigations and throwing around the word 'impeachment' but President Obama is no Bill Clinton. Is Rove that out of touch like he was on election night demanding Fox not call Ohio as he was sure Romney was going to win Ohio when only Cuyahoga County was still out?

For the last few years thought Boehner has been acting like someone who is mouthing words put in his mouth. You could call him the village idiot after his latest where he wants to impeach Obama over Benghazi and the IRS investigation where they investigated more liberal groups then conservative:

Boehner first promised that the Republican Benghazi investigation would not be a circus, “This is all about getting to the truth. This is not going to be a sideshow. This is not going to be a circus. This is a serious investigation. Our system of government depends on transparency and accountability.”

Later he turned around and claimed that President Obama is lying about everything, “Who’s been fired over the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS? No one that I’m aware of. Who’s gone to jail for violating the law? When is the administration going to tell the American people the truth? They’ve not told the truth about Benghazi. They’ve not told the truth about the IRS. They’ve not told the truth about Fast and Furious. Now, only one would have to guess. If they’re not willing to tell the American people the truth, it must not be pretty.”

So much for House Republicans holding a fair and open minded investigation that is interested in the truth. The point of these “investigations” is to drum up a case for impeachment. If Republicans can smear the Obama administration with a scandal, they think they can derail Hillary Clinton’s run in 2016. Boehner threatened the president with impeachment in January over his use of executive orders.

Anyone who doesn't think this Benghazi hearing is going to be a circus doesn't understand the GOP clowns in the House. They are not about getting at the truth or they would have investigated all the people killed in embassies under President GW Bush but they were silent then. Thirteen attacks in a timeline put together in an article by Bob Cesca of Huffington Post details the attacks on embassies other then in Iraq (my red highlighting) under Bush:

The Benghazi attacks (the consulate and the CIA compound) are absolutely not unprecedented even though they're being treated that way by Republicans who are deliberately ignoring anything that happened prior to Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009:

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of "Bali Bombings." No fatalities.February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name "David Foy." This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what's considered American soil.)September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.March 18, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.September 17, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had been married for three weeks when the attack occurred). This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

Also, my list above doesn't include the numerous and fatal attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq war -- a war that was vocally supported by Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Fox News Channel.

Speaking of Graham, I ran a search on each attack along with the name "Lindsey Graham" in the hopes of discovering that Graham had perhaps commented about the attacks or raised some questions about why the (Bush) administration didn't prevent the attacks or respond accordingly to prevent additional embassy attacks. No results. Of course. Now, this could mean the search wasn't exhaustive enough. But one thing's for sure: neither Graham nor any of his cohorts launched a crusade against the Bush administration and the State Department in any of those cases -- no one did, including the congressional Democrats, by the way.

This leads us to the ultimate point here. Not only have numerous sources previously debunked the Benghazi information being peddled by the Republicans and Fox News (for example, contrary to what the Republicans are saying, yes, reinforcements did in fact arrive before the attack on the CIA compound), but none of these people raised a single word of protest when, for example, American embassies in Yemen and Pakistan were attacked numerous times. Why didn't the Bush administration do something to secure the compounds after the first attacks? Why didn't he provide additional security?

To add to all of this GOP nonsense on Benghazi, IRS, and impeachment, Senator Rockefeller, D-WV, is now saying the GOP won't work with Obama because he is black:

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on transportation funding, Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) said, “It’s an American characteristic that you don’t do anything which displeases the voters, because you always have to get reelected here. I understand part of it. It has to do with — for some, it’s just we don’t want anything good to happen under this president, because he’s the wrong color.”

Rockefeller admitted that he is mad at himself for not speaking up about a lot of things earlier, and he criticized his colleagues for putting their own political self interest ahead of making the tough decisions to do what is right.

I am betting they would say the same thing about a woman. In fact, this group of hard right GOP will never work with anyone that is not hard right IMHO! Laziest group of Congressman I have ever witnessed with their lack of days they work now along with passing very little that amounts to anything. I object to the fact they draw a full salary working only 113 days in 2014. We pay for their transportation as taxpayers for the scum to go back and forth like the privileged. How did most of them become millionaires after going to Congress since they cannot have outside jobs?

Then there is the GOP fundraising off of Benghazi where four people were killed even though the new Chairman of the Committee urged them not to fundraise off Benghazi. GOP cannot help themselves as they play to their hard right. One word describes today's GOP who are fundraising off Benghazi -- 'scumbags' -- fits perfectly IMO!

Gowdy sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper later in the day to tape an interview for Tapper’s The Lead. Tapper pressed him on this issue. Gowdy once again stated that he will not raise money on Benghazi and he urged other Republicans to follow suit.

Here’s the thing. The NRCC is NOT going to listen to Gowdy regarding this. Republican leaders see this as the way to energize the base and get the hardcore conservatives to rally around something prior to the midterms. This is the Republican platform heading into November, and quite possibly, all the way into 2016. They are going to use this as a way to raise money over the next few months. Perhaps Gowdy feels like he is doing something legitimate and worthwhile by investigating the White House’s response and conversations regarding Benghazi. However, most Republicans see this as a way to change the narrative in Washington and try to hang some kind of scandal on the President and potential 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

While Gowdy may go around telling everyone he isn’t going to use this investigation as a way to fill his campaign coffers, the NRCC has already come out and defended itself and will not stop raising money. The committee made the following statement in response to its fundraising efforts.

“The Obama administration has not been honest with the American people with regards to Benghazi, and if Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker the American people will never know the truth. Our goal is to hold Democrats in Congress accountable who vote against creating the select committee on Benghazi and who continue to try to sweep this controversy under the rug.”

So, per Gowdy’s own words, it seems that his fellow Republicans feel it is perfectly fine to raise money “on the backs of four dead Americans.” That is good to know.

Someone please tell me why anyone would vote for these Republican scum who could care less about the average American but bows down to their wealthy donors like the Kochs plus do the bidding of Karl Rove who is joined at the hip with the Koch's. Time to tell the GOP to go find another career so our tax dollars can go further instead of all the millions they have spent on useless investigations along with the House repealing the Affordable Care Act over 50 times. Help send the GOP to the Unemployment Line on November 4th!